Today's song could be one of many masterpieces, because it's really a tribute to its writer, the recently departed Rick Hall, who founded the magical musical well known as Fame Studios at 603 East Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Growing up in poverty in the south, the highly driven and focused Hall originally set up FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios above a drug store in Florence, Alabama in the 1950s, but through the next decade at Shoals he built up a legendary recording studio in which hundreds of hits were recorded, where he produced and wrote many using the great musicians of Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (also called The Swampers), who backed many greats. Here in a state where racial tensions were notorious, black and white were united by music. Those who recorded there included Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Joe Tex, Bobby Blue Bland, Eddie Floyd, Candi Staton, Clarence Carter, Little Milton, Sawyer Brown, Tony Joe White, Duane Allman, Boz Scaggs, Paul Simon, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Joe Cocker, JJ Cale, John Prine, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Rolling Stones.
This song, written by Hall alongside Dan Penn, and Oscar Franks was recorded in 1966, has been sung by many other artists, Barbara Lynn, Don Varner, Billy Young, Maurice & Mac, Amazing Rhythm Aces, Bobby Hatfield, and James & Bobby Purify. Here let's feature both the Pickett and Redding versions, different in pace, and using an extended metaphor of broken love, but both great in their own way, and expertly overseen by Hall:
You left the water running when you left me here behind
You left the water running, running from these eyes of mine
You turned out the light of love
You left with another guy
You turned off all your love for me
But you forgot to turn off the cry
You forgot to turn off the cry
You pulled the shades away down low
And disconnected the telephone
But these tears a running from my eyes
I can't turn them off and on
No, I can't turn them off and on
You left the water running when you left me here behind
You left the water running, running from these eyes of mine
You locked the door and left me outside
And then you threw the key away
But baby, you'll regret, baby you'll be upset
When you get your water bill to pay
When you get your water bill to pay
You left the water running when you left me here behind
You left the water running, running from these eyes of mine.
And finally, here is a documentary about Fame Studios at Muscle Shoals, featuring many greats who worked there, including Hall himself:
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